Iraqi parliament calls to dismiss a government official due to salaries cuts

First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Hassan Karim Al-Kaabi called on Wednesday Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi to dismiss the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance, Taif Sami “for not respecting the parliament and affecting the rights of the Iraqi people negatively.”

The Parliamentary Finance Committee held a meeting today to discuss deducting a percentage of the employees and retiree’s salaries in the presence of the Minister of Finance, the President of the Central Bank and Director of the Budget Department at the Ministry of Finance.

In a statement received to AlghdeerTV, Al-Kaabi called on the Parliamentary Finance Committee to clarify its position regarding deduction of employees and retiree’s salaries as well as compensatory salaries for the families of martyrs and political prisoners.

The Prime Minister’s advisor for financial affairs, Mathehar Muhammad Salih, announced that the applicable income tax will be applied to the total salary instead of the nominal starting from the current month.

The semi-official newspaper, Al-Sabah, was quoted in its issue released today by Saleh as saying that the income tax law is on the nominal salary and now it will be applied to the total salary, that is, the nominal with the allocations, indicating that the income tax law is fixed and deductions range between 10 to 15 % for all employees.

Saleh added that the proposals issued regarding deduction of salaries have been canceled, but salaries will be dealt with according to the income tax with exceptions to that, as this law will not include those whose salaries are less than 500 thousand dinars, indicating that the matter was discussed, but wasn’t issued formally yet, and the government is working hard to provide the salaries for the current month of June.

The Iraqi economy has taken an overwhelming hit in recent months. Measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have severely impacted the finances of both private businesses and public institutions. While oil prices have also dropped significantly over the past several months, all impacted the country’s income.